I got into an argument with a guy at work. It started out with some ooohing and aaaahing over last night's episode of Game of Thrones. He is That Guy (no shame in that, I'm often That Guy too) who bemoaned departure from the books. I told him what I often say here. That I consider the HBO series camo , and the books have become fan fiction. He was aghast. The argument went into several tangents. I think I won the day when I brought up The Godfather and Gone with the Wind. Nobody reads the books anymore and the movies are classics. By the way, I will read the trashy book on occasion to fill in blanks (Al Nieri), but the Godfather movie is far superior.

In my sense, "canon" means the accepted story. Perhaps it's a bit too harsh to call the Ice and Fire books "fan fiction", but where is Book 6? Etc. Martin has nobody to blame but himself for this.

Anyway, here are a few "stories" where I consider the moving picture production superior to the printed one. So superior that it might be considered "canon".

Game of Thrones (as opposed to The Dong of Ice and Fire books)The GodfatherGone with the Wind

However to the public – Gone with the Wind is an example of more people having seen the movie versus read the book – public perception of the canon can be different and swayed with new versions designed to sell more tickets and books etc…

Look at how many times Superman for example has been rebooted – I would stick to the original for the canon – the rest something different

I think the two stories have diverged (significantly) in several respects; I also think that the Game of Thrones series is, by and large, better than the books. Partly this is because they have benefitted from ruthless editing! GRRM's doorstopper-tome-series has a million plot threads and almost no ends. Characters appear, then disappear with no resolution more often than not, and the length of time it's taken him to finish the series is… disappointing (but also understandable as a writer myself).

So for me, while ASOIAF is canon, GoT is better. Does that make sense?

I don't think it's an answerable question. When you play in someone else's world--writing a pastiche, creating a film or a comic book version, or composing a set of wargame rules or an RPG scenario--someone (usually the person putting up money or the person granting rights) has to decide what prior material the new thing is to be consistent with, and they can pick any criterion they feel like using.

Sometimes it's "none." "Sherlock" and "Elementary" both completely disregarded any parts of Conan Doyle they didn't care for. Hardly any of the Conan on movies and TV makes any effort to agree with Robert Howard. And there's precious little of Ian Flaming in any recent Bond film.

But--other than licensing agreements--if it's anything at all, it's the original material. The movies and television shows "reboot" and disregard earlier takes, and pastiches by different authors virtually never accept other pastiches as canon.

The good part of all this is that we may never see the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter Conan stories again, nor anything derived from them.

Cannon is the original source material everything else is a variant. This does not mean variants do not have merit. Romeo and Juliet is Cannon, West Side Story a great variant.

Can a variant improve on the source material – of course. Has Game of Thrones improved on A Song of Ice and Fire? A subjective question tied to individual taste. Like beauty and humor – what is true for you is not necessarily true for me. I don't, for instance, find the Three Stooges funny – many disagree.

For a while I boycotted the HBO version to avoid spoilers but a book devoted friend convinced me of my folly pointing out that the serias was all in good fun but had no more final relevance to the "real story" than the many Fire and Ice campaigns we set in Westeros that have placed many houses on the Iron Throne. Kit Harrington pretending to be Jon Snow with that terrible man bun is just as harmless as dressing up for DragonCon in Ice and Fire costumes.

I've enjoyed the HBO version – some aspects are quite good (they could not have found a better Sam Tarley, Rose Leslie made a (too) lovely Ygritte, Charles Dance (with too much hair) a menacing Tywin and of course Peter Dinklidge – but we also got Sean Bean wasted with a terrible wig, a mis-cast Cateyln and weird hit and miss costuming but who would have wanted to miss Hardhomme or The Battle of the Bastards – it even looked a bit like a real medieval battle….)

Martin's masterwork has inspired some great variants – an nice board game, card game and OK computer game (not to mention A Game of Fire and Ice!). And of course a ground breaking HBO serias – which puts fantasy tales back where they belong as rich cultural refelctions combined with timeless truths about humans.

Martin's work is more sprawling and much more based on actual history (in his recent interview with Time he made clear its origins are in the politics of both the 100 Years War and War of the Roses). History is not tidy and has many characters – some flash in the pans (like for instance Joan of Arc) others lasting forces of cultural change.

In the Time interview and recent blog Martin has exhibited a new dedication to finishing. And its about time. For some reason I actually believe his 2018 prediction. Let's hope.

Till then there are still Fire and Ice Campaigns to run – lots of great gaming to fill the time till Martin speaks.

So paint up your favorite house and game on (we at least have some great HBO battles to come for inspiration).

"Uh, but is "Dong of Ice & Fire" available only on the porno aisle?"It's available in a plain dragonskin wrapper from under the counter. Ask the clerk "What do you think will ever really satisfy Cersei?" as the password.

Both are canon. After the years of endless superhero reboots (how many times have we had a new Spiderman? 3?) & the like, I see these as their own "seperate" universes. FREX the "core" Spiderman comics would be Earth 1. The Ultimate universe Earth 2, the 1st movie trilogy Earth 3, the 2nd reboot Earth 4, & the current "shared" universe Spidey as Earth 5. All are canon within their own universes. So what happens or how Spidey is depicted in the comics does not necessarily mean the same will happen or be meaningful for any of the movie series. Same for something like GoT or any other franchise. All exist & are canon for their particular medium.

While the original is always the canonical source (how's that fer fancy talkin') I must say that there are a few examples where the movie version is better (and I agree that Game of Thrones is better on TV than in the books)

This logic has a limit does it not. At some point every story is simply a variant of the story before it. Clearly WSS is based on RJ. But they are clearly not the same in a great many ways.

IMHO, it's who tells it best wins. Generally the artist is the one who does it first and the business man who sees buck in a different medium or younger audience does it second. So the original has heart while the second has a budget.

But as with GF example, this isn't always the case. Sometimes an original work spurs an artist who takes the original and does so much more with it.

Remember, it's art not history. We don't have to go back the the original Latin to enjoy it :)

And then you have rare cases like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where every version (yes, even the towel) is canon.

Star Wars, Star Trek and Gundam have all had problems with what materials are considered canon over the years. The Extended Universe for Star Wars was recently thrown under the bus, episodes from every Trek series have been questioned for canonicity, and there was the period when Sunrise refused to include Gundam ZZ in the official Universal Century timeline (until Gundam Unicorn was released, thus rendering the Ple cybernewtype program canon once again).

You hade the right idea at start. "Canon" is not a single work but a group of them (when we are talking about books) and possibly about films but it is not an archetype.

I understand your difference in certain things, Godfather movie versus Godfather book. What you are talking here about is more "authoritative" not canon. Lord of the Righs is "the Source" , the authoritative account from which others are derived.

Arguably Godfather the movie is the cannon where the book is not as well read. But the choice is not yours to make. What remains in a canon is the passing or failing of the test of time.